Samsung Buys 5% In Wacom Shares, Better S-Pens Are On The way

Wacom, a company with a good reputation in the stylus and touch panel business that helped Samsung to develop the Galaxy Note units, has just sold 5% of its shares to the South Korea-based company. Samsung has purchased 5% in Wacom shares, paying not less than 58.7 million dollars to the Japan-based company.

With this transaction Samsung will gain access to Wacom’s proprietary technology for digital input via stylus. This basically means that the next S-Pen stylus units and all the applications optimized for it will most likely be improved.

I am also expecting to see small improvements to the S-Pen stylus of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet, which will be officially revealed by the South Korea-based phone maker at MWC 2013.

Probably, sometime in the near future we might get to see a tablet or phablet with an affordable price and orientated to the graphics segment. Of course, the illustrator and sketchers are buying Wacom’s tablets, with prices over $1,000, but maybe this technology will also end up on a Samsung tablet with a more affordable price.

Until then, all I can say is that S-Pen and the partnership between Samsung and Wacom brought great results so far.

We might also see Samsung bringing a major update to its S-Pen stylus on its next-generation tablet, unofficially dubbed Galaxy Note 3. Note 3 will probably come pre-loaded with Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie and Smasung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI, packed with lots of S-Pen optimized applications and gestures.

Talking about the Galaxy Note 3, rumor has it that it will be underpinned by the new octo-core chipset unveiled by Samsung at CES 2013. The Exynos 5 Octa would make the Note 3 one of the most powerful smartphones in the segment, and paired with a full HD display it might further consolidate Samsung’s position as smartphone market leader.